This thread probably is (or should be) dead but it sure is funny.
Notice the original subject: OVER-RATED PIANISTS ---
It didn't say "THE BEST PIANISTS" or "THE WORST PIANISTS". Still, the whole thread has been about who plays well and who doesn't, everyone getting mad when their favourite gets mocked.
When you look at the world, or the average person, what do you expect? Will you listen to the general opinion and form yours based on it? Seems like that to me, since I'm sure some of people's "views" (even on this thread) have been heavily guided by others. It shows on how one describes a pianist or a composer, its always the same clichy words and expressions recycled over and over again. Seems to me like people are ghosts who have already forgotten the child's ability to handle abstract formations called thoughts, and instead they communicate with each other by only words and words meaning other words. Nobody can anymore see INTO these words but it doesn't matter, for communication still "works" by it's inner rules (yet with no real attachment to an objective reality).
For example: After reading this thread, I've had my dose of certain names being repeated over and over again, and based on this I can say: Pianist XYZ is overrated. Of course its overrated, its been forcefully stuffed down my throat and I have no choice but to throw it back up.
Any kind of HYPE sucks. Why do people want to speak with such big words about a person? You either understand an artist, or you don't. This could be because the artist lacks real view and is actually basing his art on the fact that nobody can yet perfectly define art, therefore making it impossible to absolutely exclude this particular work of art - be it act of performance, a sculpture or a painting. You can't PROVE them to be wrong, but you can form basis of what reveals him to be a pseudo-artist.
Why do people praise a person, lift him above others to join the God? Maybe it is that by grabbing Franz Liszt by his neck and raising him to clouds, you actually promote yourself by drawing a clear line between this genius and "the rest", and since there must exist a mutual understanding between the genius and you for this madness to even occur, you join yourself with them. Nietzsche said that feeling pity is only a way to grant power to oneself. Analogy?
In the end it gets down to this: People are so uncertain about what they want and like, that they need to seek mutual agreement from others. Instead of being happy with the fact that something opens itself up for you (maybe some particular pianist's performance and interpretation), you drive to form something more solid out of this "view", and this leads to forming of the general concensus. And that's exactly what finally makes the ones outside it despise it. There wouldn't be a problem if instead of hammering down the pianists that a person doesn't personally like, they'd try and put in a frame the things that make a pianist good, so you can achieve an understanding of why somebody would like Horowitz while not liking Ashkenazy.
"Just my two cents."
Oh almost forgot: most over-rated pianist is, IN MY OPINION, Sergey Rachmaninoff. I've heard enough recommendations of his recordings, yet they always sounded dry (I must accept that, knowing the recording quality of the times), conservative and "clinic". He didn't enjoy performing, which kind of adds to the big picture of mine. On the other hand, I don't listen to the hype much so I'm not sure which pianists are the ones that everyone's SHOUTING about. I like Grigory Sokolov's playing of Prokofiev's second war sonata, to name a good, famous pianist.
Topic: overrated pianists of the 20th century